She cowered in the corner as he advanced towards her, a dangerous glint in his eyes. His eyebrows were narrowed threateningly and his hand was already clenched into a tight fist where his nails were digging into the flesh of his palms. She whimpered meagrely and tried to crawl backwards, her whole body trembling with fright, but he just kept on approaching her, never stopping to think.

She tried to plead with him, but he ignored her and when he reached her, he dragged her up by the wrist, yanking her sharply upwards, not bothering with the fact he was hurting her. She let tears pour from her eyes and she begged him not to hurt her, but he just slapped her and quietened her. He looked horrifically enraged and he slammed her against the wall, making her smack her head on the plaster and fall down to the ground.

He hurt her before, and she was stupid enough to go back to him. She forgot all about her affair with Matt and went back to her husband, deciding that he should get another chance. But he found out about their kisses, and the bruise remaining from the first hit was just a distant memory now, covered up by the scars from the more recent attacks.

He made her feel so worthless, so stupid and vile and ridiculous. He made her hate herself to the point where his damages to her were not the only one inflicted on her. She couldn't believe that her life had come to this – living like this, pretending to be fine and saying that she just kept falling over, because she was just too outspoken. It was her own fault really, she had known Matt was temptation, the forbidden fruit; she just shouldn't have gone there. She knew she wouldn't be able to restrain herself from him, and yet she still went and deliberately disobeyed her husband.

In a way, it made her hate Matt as well.

From her crumpled position on the floor, he pulled her back up, almost wrenching her shoulder from its socket, and took another step, burying her into the wall so her back was slammed straight up against it. He leant his face right in towards her so they were only parted by a few millimetres and she tried to move her head to the side so he couldn't reach her, and she tried to scramble to get out of the way, but he pinned her arms to her sides and wouldn't let her go. His lips brushed against her chin and he slowly drawled, 'Alex, Alex, Alex, you hurt me didn't you? Running off with that…little boy, and leaving me with your daughter?'

She nodded frantically, trying to agree at all costs, not even bothering to correct him that it was his fault. There was no point saying anything anymore. She dared to look up at him, and her eyes watered and she could swear she saw sympathy in his eyes. But then she realized that it wouldn't be there…she didn't deserve it.

'Oh, why do you make me feel so bad about giving you what you deserve Alex? You know it's what you need, to keep you in line, so why do you have be so weak about it?' he asked angrily, in a low, growling manner and she breathed out harshly. She had been so sure that today, for once, he would leave her alone instead of decorating her with patchworks. 'I'm sorry Jack, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' she cried and he just looked at her with contempt before turning and moving to walk away.

She must've exclaimed relief very loudly for he sharply turned around and slammed the back of his hand around her face, pushing her into the wall where she again hit her head and collapsed onto the floor, battered, bruised and bleeding, hoping that someone would come and save her. But no one would – she couldn't tell anyone, he would kill her. And God knows he was capable of it. But if he hurt Salome, she would get to him first. That was the one thing that kept her living or leaving - she knew her daughter needed her more than she needed help.

'Matt, help me,' she breathed out inaudibly, before closing her eyes and praying that no one at work would ask her about the latest addition to her accident list.

Alex awoke with the biggest start in all of history, flinging her eyes open desperately to find the bruise coating her eye paining her more than ever before, and she openly wept to herself. She was in such shock after that horrifying vision that she was shaking an incredible amount even though the room was rather hot. It took her a while to remember where she was, but once she did, she wondered how she had gotten into a double bed, and where he was exactly.

She sat up against the back board, and pulled the heavy duvet up to her chin and looked nervously around the room, her eyes darting from side to side, making sure she was definitely alone. That dream, vision, nightmare, whatever you wanted to call it, was the future, she could tell. She couldn't go back, she couldn't let that happen to her. She needed someone to protect her; she needed someone to help her.

Slowly, she creeped out of the bed, fumbled around in one of the bedside drawers for a torch, quickly flipped it on and walked out of the bedroom. The apartment looked terrifying in this darkness, with all the lights switched off, casting her in darkness. She looked around, moving the torch around, making sure there was no one hiding in the shadows behind the doors, before edging her way around the flat, trying to find the handle for the spare room. She just couldn't be alone, like she said already; she couldn't even be by herself in a room, especially after that vision.

Before finding the handle, she stopped and raised her hand to her face, checking for any of the mismatch that it had been like during her dream. Another tear trickled down her cheek when she felt the swelling around her eye and she almost burst into sobs, but she just managed to stop herself.

She found the handle pretty easily to be fair, and she thought about the moral implications of what would happen if she continued. The handle squeaked loudly and annoyingly when she pressed it down and pushed the door open, trying not to wake him.

Matt was a pretty beautiful human being if she was honest. Even just looking at tonight, he had done so much for her and nothing she asked was too much. And here he was, having sacrificed his bed and his room for her, lying in a whisperless sleep in a small single bed. Luckily for her, he was only sleeping on just over half of the mattress, and she couldn't see how joining him would hurt either of them.

He was topless, unsurprisingly, and as she approached him, she slipped out of the tracksuit bottoms he had lent her into her underwear, and then nervously sat on the corner of the bed and looked down at him, the vest long enough to cover the tops of her legs as well. He told her earlier that he cared for her a lot, and she couldn't help but reciprocate it. Who knows, maybe it was just caring, or maybe it was a hell of a lot more than that.

She leant down and kissed him on the jaw and then slid down beside him. His presence calmed her more than she believed to be possible and he was warm beside her, completely unaware of how much this was helping her. She curled into his chest, and she was a little surprised when his arm subconsciously wrapped itself around her back, and his other hand moved into her hair. She smiled to herself and she almost managed to feel a little better as she sank into another sleep, this time a little happier – she hoped. But nothing could hurt her when she was here.

Later on today, they would have to hide from the world. One day, someone would find out, and the whole nation would be in uproar about it. Sometime, maybe, they could be together, if only for a few days. She could never thank him enough for what he had done for her, and she could spend a lifetime repaying him.

'I love you Matt,' she murmured unsurely, glad he was asleep for that because she wasn't okay with saying it to his face.

She missed the smile that graced his lips, the smirk that almost escaped due to the fact he was still awake.

He tightened his grip on her as she dozed, and kissed her on the forehead.

She was safe here.

In his arms.

In his bed.

She was home at last.